I want to write about eternity too 
just like the cats
probing at their breakfasts

or your two week old hands Isadora 
brushing my beard like sleepwalking
windshield wipers or the way the sun 

uses maple leaves as lampshades 
if we can spend as much of ourselves 
in time as out of it if our conch shell ears

keep after months the cymbal samba of the sea 
if your feet tender toweled and purpling 
remember the ant hills and thumb tacks 

and jelly spills they haven’t found yet 
if your big sister and her enormous feelings
and your mom and her incomparable well 

of kindness and how they use each moment
almost like a ladle if everything is like breath 
if we can use jazz the way we use a shower 

if everything can be a little of everything else 
if the naked basement bulb of my patience
in its morse distress can most times be enough 

if the slapstick surgeon of memory can hang in 
if the horror show doesn’t get too hungry 
for more and more dimensions if we can start 

carpet bombing the nations of the earth 
with dollar bills and daisy petals instead 
if our favorite pizza place can please fall 

into the amber bath of immortality and 
we can live there in perennial Friday evening 
they’re bringing cups of ice and the ovens are awake

————————————–

Dylan Emmons called us from Poughkeepsie, NY.

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"Progressively Ambitious Poem for the Future" by Dylan Emmons

three soldiers in tinfoil jackets
roasting on the bottom oven rack

she’d cut the ends off one too long for its own good
hacked chunks from the pudgy pocked one
sliced the largest of the lot into quarters

pulling used foil from a crumpled stash she
manhandled the starchy meal
into silver uniforms
tried to unwrap and uncrinkle
but eventually abandoned hope
supper could be smooth or smartly dressed

when the oven sang out its warning
she skinned them from the foil
burned fingers in her haste to separate
what she’d spent so much energy on
wadded up the bits she couldn’t reuse and
chucked ‘em in the bin

the bin

it’s where most of us find ourselves
after a relationship
sharing space with those silver skins
not fitting any better than the aluminum did
her and her meal prep
her and her insistence others should hide
what she plans to devour

————————————–

C. Late called us from Kansas City, MO.

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"Potato" by C. Late

after Chappell Roan

The cold knows me in ways you never will.
Darkness clamps her hand over the city’s mouth.
Still, light. Music rises like smoke. And God is anything
but subtle — this joint, our first kiss. Now my heart’s
a helium balloon — pink, no strings attached.
Sailing high among the lanterns — paper clouds 
in a makeshift sky in a lesbian bar where 
I keep my sunglasses on so you can’t see me 
cry. If we’re already in Hell, then that explains 
middle school, which isn’t when I knew. But the body, 
like God, offers signs. Neon and to the point — 
Open. Welcome. Thank You. When I called desire
by name, the fog lifted from our past. (Seventh grade 
art class. I wanted to tell you.) Twelve years 
later, your palms are electric against my cheeks. 
Eyes, the color of parched earth — so here is my grief. 
Winter, like any crush, renders my layers useless.
I forgive myself. In New York, there are no chance 
encounters. There are choices other than fear.

————————————–

Micaela Camacho-Tenreiro called us from Wharton, NJ.

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"Naked in Manhattan" by Micaela Camacho-Tenreiro

Storms– Wave
action– Sand

crash– A kite coming
close–

Wobbling
moon– Desire
work– These optimisms–

There’s your thunder– Your downpour
across the street–

A kid beating a tree
with its stick– Panting
about every day–

	Too hot
	to worry
	about plot–

Chewing
ice into the mic–

Today a hundred-
year-old woman
died– Separately
I saw so many
maggots later–

As a recluse
I really went
all out–

————————————–

Jenna Cardinale called us from Brooklyn, NY.

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"New York Summer" by Jenna Cardinale

What bloomed from grief
	came instinct, 
			came wrath.
The aftermath of my longing 
will show on your back like Lichtenberg figures 
after the subtlety 
		   of a strike.

My beautiful friend, 
I do think heat causes molecules 
to excite,
and if you let me,
we’ll honor the burn marks after this smudging.

But not before prayer, not before
kneeling behind you
your scent, curiously ancient I’m 
                     suddenly       wet 
I want you protected, well fed. So please, let me 
sage you.	 The air around you.
The air around persimmons you’ve hung out 
to dry, leaving you / not bruised 
but sugar-bloomed into a world you want to 
breathe in.

And you’re gonna wanna know what becomes of it, the tsuris of us.
Probably nothing, it’s nothing, right? I keep 

finding you in kitchens. 
And I, tending to a grow bag full of fairytale eggplants,
their blooms bowing down as if in 
	shame
		or in love
or as if grieving was a thing of
shame or love             or is it 
your scent, curiously ancient,
that is the intimate why of my grieving.

————————————–

C. Rivera called us from New York, NY.

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"Sugar Bloom & Smudge" by C. Rivera

do not be afraid of your own heart beating
there must be chocolate maybe even daily
I would recommend buying the better cheese
drink orange juice in the morning it will help
drink wine or whiskey and write things down
it is always good to know your own handwriting
remember how clean sheets feel and hot baths
keep lip balm by your bed keep a tissue in your pocket
buy a lamp so your room is warm and buy things
so they are memories later and look at your hands
they are beautiful! Once a week make a nice meal
because you can and don’t be afraid to be alone
that would be like throwing away perfectly good
socks or bras keep them and buy new underwear
it’s easy to forget but let your friends remind
you and remember your friends and their favorite
colors and kiss someone just to taste their lips
love your apartment even when the microwave breaks
love food even when it is toast from the toaster
love your hands and your skin put rings on your fingers
wear a designer lipstick and keep it in your pocket

————————————–

Charlotte Alexander called us from Moscow, ID.

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"The Way to Keep Going in Your Twenties" by Charlotte Alexander

after Ocean Vuong
 
and why 
            this want 
for permanence surround 
 
sound my life with 
            backups
sound out my name and 
 
it’s almost a library
            flower pressed screen dazed
stillness
 
a twinkie and her 
            wrapper words
she presses in the shape of a 
 
body I too 
            will one day 
be glad I am 
 
no longer 
            violet
and instead fertilizer
 
no mama’s memoir 
            no
mama to read my 
 
memoir will be 
            ocean 
open ooooo like whale sounds
 
I will linger forever in the 
            aqua
uh huh I used to be 
fern
now I’m
 
feather my body retreats
            for
ever/y line I write I
 
forget my hands can strangle 
            recycle like 
madness like magic 
 
I immortalize the white I 
            wrangle 
with pen body
 
oh 
            body
earth will ground us 
 
whole

————————————–

Fiona Martinez called us from San Diego, CA.

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"Unassigned" by Fiona Martinez

we did not hold hands
often we clenched legs
under the table

hands were too public
for two who did not know
how feelings socailize

we sat on a bench
on the corniche
watching the nile at noon

it was full and calm
we could hear the wind sing
to the trees on its sides

you held my hand
and I looked
as you took it towards you

the wind stopped singing
and my heart wanted
to come out and taste the water

I said look how my hand
looks no matter
how many times I wash it

you said look how mine
sweats and then asked
if it bothered me

I held your wrist
and folded your hand
and brushed it with mine
again and again
until it is my hand that is wet

you smiled and looked down
happy and shy like a bird
folding into itself

I asked you for a kiss
I could not say it
I wrote it in a notebook
you once wrote your name in

words were too intimate
for two who did not know
how love talks

the notebook became
a pigeon back and forth
between us it held words
our mouths dared not admit

you wrote a falouka
is where you get one
you knew the nile
had none that day

no one teaches a girl
how to want
without bruising
the family name

so you swallowed it
and it bloomed somewhere
I could not reach

and I loved before
I had the language
then it came in a dialect
I had to translate for myself

so I spat it out
and kept the bitter ache

I would go through
your things
and asked about them

I claimed to get to know you
better through the small and ordinary
to break what ice may be left

you said I know
but I secretly hoped
I would be mistaken
for your watermelon lipstick
and go home with you

but you went home
and I stayed

I pass by the bench
and ask it why
are you still here
it says nothing but I hear
echoes of your laughter

so I sit and watch
the nile full and calm
but the wind no longer sings
it just blows
and I get cold easily nowadays
but I wait
a falouka might pass

————————————–

Muhammad Rabih called us from Egypt.

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"Untitled" by Muhammad Rabih

When I Try to Verify Why They Carpet Driveways After the Rain, Google Keeps Feeding Me Distressingly Hot Factoids About Hermaphroditic Earthworm Sex
Until I thought to check, I thought I knew:
worms emerge from dirt to tar
on the run from drowning. Actually no one understands
their reasons. Maybe

worms emerge from dirt to tar
when vibrations ape a predator. Or are
their reasons maybe
traveling fast on slicked slab? Reproducing? 

When vibrations ape a predator, or are
mock applause when I drop a glass
traveling fast on slicked slab, reproducing
language is beyond me. My speech breaks with static snow,

mock applause, when I drop a glass
knife voice. Sticking to the surface
language is beyond me. My speech breaks with static snow,
turns trail. Trail: proof and proof of absence. Here’s my opened-by-a-
        
knife voice sticking to the surface
of the steel. Spill
turns trail. Trail: proof and proof of absence. Here’s my opened-by-a-
mouth mouth. I say

of the steel spill
that I can be allowed to want. I’m saying
mouth: Mouth. I say
all

that I can be allowed to want. I’m saying
I’m
all
mouth,


I’m
just open
mouth,
and I’m

just-open.
I feed
and I’m
equalizing pressure.

I feed
like falling and I fuck like falling,
equalizing pressure,
meant to shed a wreck of men

like falling, and I fuck like falling
was becoming of the nymph stage. I claim I was
meant to shed a wreck of men,
their aims. I knew what needy grubs, what writhing life I’d swallowed clean,
          
was becoming. Of the nymph stage, I claim I was
on the run from drowning. Actually no one understands
their aims. I knew what needy grubs, what writhing life I’d swallowed clean
until I thought to check. I thought I knew.

————————————–

Callie Jennings called us from Boston, MA.

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"When I Try to Verify Why They Carpet Driveways After the Rain..." by Callie Jennings

Tonight you lay on your own couch, trying to head off fixation. Your cigar is just a. You hold it oscillating between Cuban and. You are not. You tell yourself this.  You flip through your notebook, and it is filled with pictures of you riding the night. The cigar is in your fingers, which place it to your lips. You take a luxurious puff. Wake up, you whimper, and linger, eyes glazing. Up, you manage. Up. The notebook falls from your other hand. Gravity is repression, you think and try to not. You know how you will feel when you awaken. You can already feel the cold sweat coming.

————————————–

JeFF Stumpo called us from Litchfield, NH.

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"[Tonight you lay on your own couch...]" by JeFF Stumpo

Poetry via voicemail. Missed calls you need to hear.

Open submissions accepted.
Guidelines at http://voicemailpoems.org

"Progressively Ambitious Poem for the Future" by Dylan Emmons

VOICEMAIL POEMS